Eugenics in Berlin and Dresden Post #2

During my last couple days in Berlin, I did a free walking tour of the city with my hostel, visited the outdoor memorials for victims of the Holocaust, and toured the Jewish Museum and German History Museum. I observed each site attempting to understand the way in which the city connected the present with its tragic past, from the physical presentation of the memorials to their location and accessibility to the public. I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (or the Holocaust Memorial) first with the walking tour, which skipped over the memorials to the other groups of victims. The Holocaust Memorial is clearly the largest and most eye-catching. The tour guide gave us some history behind its creation and the controversy over its presentation. At first glance there is no way of knowing the purpose of the memorial, which is a collection of dark rectangular slabs of stone, rising in height here and there arbitrarily. But that is the point—a visitor can interpret the sea of pillars in any way he wishes. It certainly makes a viewer think, and is not an aesthetically pleasing monument that tourists flock to for a photo op. Critics have said that it does not explain the horrors enough. I did not have an opinion on whether I believed there were memorials worthier of creation, but it was definitely moving to walk by myself among the pillars, especially in the middle where the slabs were forest-like and tall enough that I couldn’t see past them.

I also went to the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism and Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, which were in different locations in Berlin’s Tiergarten, an expansive park right in the middle of the city. The Memorial to Homosexuals was the least crowded, and most people seemed to pass it by in the park. It looked to be made of the same stone as the Holocaust Memorial, except only consisted of one large structure, which was almost like a one-room building. The structure had a single window, into which the viewer could peer and watch a continuous black-and-white video of homosexual couples kissing with different mementos of history whirling around them. A lone wilted flower lay in front of the window.

The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims was located along more of a central path in the park, and was the only memorial to clearly display information about the history behind the memorial. A timeline on the victims’ persecution was exhibited on panels along a wall. On walking through an entryway on the side of the wall, one found a clear round pool with a stone triangle in the middle.

This final memorial was the most relevant to my research. Under the year 1938, the panel read:

In December, Himmler issues a basic decree “to tackle the Gypsy question on the basis of race” with the aim of finding a “final solution to the Gypsy question”. By the end of World War II, the Research Office for Racial Hygiene, which was given the task of registering Roma and Sinti, has prepared some 24,000 “racial expert opinions”. These provide an essential basis for deportation to killing centers.

The German Hygiene Museum also offered more perspective on the underlying issue of eugenics behind the actions of the Nazis. In fact, there was a whole section on Rassenhygiene, or racial hygiene. There was an introduction explaining the exhibit, and the biological terminology highlighted the idea of racial theory as having a scientific character:

"Nazi racial theory saw the German people as a biological unit. The point of racial hygiene was to preserve the German racial body from genetic degeneration due to amalgamation with the supposedly inferior races. At the same time healthy hereditary traits were to be encouraged by selective breeding and raising the birth-rate. The classification of people according to pseudo-scientific racial research could sometimes serve as the basis for life-and-death decision."

On display were many objects that served as propaganda, spreading the idea that Jews were poisoning the bloodline of the German people.   

Sterilization order for the child of a French soldier of North African descent.

Overview chart explaining the Nuremberg racial laws. Charts illustrating hereditary doctrine were supposed to show the population the consequence of mixed marriages.

Poster promoting educational writings published by the NS People's Welfare organization. An important aim of the NS People's Welfare was educating adults on genetic hygiene. Only healthy people were supposed to have children, so-called hereditarily diseased people faced compulsory sterilization. About 200,000 ballast existences fell victim to euthanasia.

Propaganda poster advocating racial hygiene.